Tag: Process Builder

As a Salesforce Administrator in charge of building processes and maintaining a Salesforce platform one of the most important things we have to keep in mind is Process limits and Chatter limits. I will be honest I have never given limits much thought as an Administrator it is one of those things that never crossed my mind. It fell into a category of “out of sight out of mind”. Even now I think I unconsciously assumed my Developer would handle it. I think of Process Limits in the context of apex limits, API call out limits etc. Since I have been using Lightning Process Builder it is one of those topics that have crept up into my line of vision. I realize now it is just as important for an Administrator to be aware of Process Limits as it is for a Developer.

Out of the box there are set limits which are per organization limits. Salesforce has plenty of resources and documentation explaining any and all limits (check some out here: Process Limits). These limits go hand in hand with daily email limits, apex governor limits and SOQL query limits. These limitations were placed for a reason of course. The more processes and limits you reach the slower your organization may run. Since businesses prefer instant gratification you may want to keep your limits in mind. With that said there are some limits that are just inherently too low such as the Chatter follow limit of 500 follows across all objects.

This became a problem for my company because we are shifting our business goals to be more Sales focused. So this limitation wasn’t just a problem for us but would impact any B2B business and those who are Sales driven. If you have Sales teams that are nurturing relationships whether individually at the Contact level or organization wide at the Account level they will be limited on the records they can follow from Accounts, Contacts to Opportunities. Chatter unfollow rules can help mitigate this being a problem initially but 500 records across all objects is really low.

This is one of those really easy limits to have increased. Salesforce Support will increase your Chatter limit once your Administrator submits a case giving a fairly simple business reason. We were able to increase our Chatter limit from 500 to 2000 by simply saying we needed the increase for our Sales teams to nurture Business Relationships. We were able to get this request approved in a matter of hours. I think it was the simplest and fastest Support case I have ever submitted.

Of course this is not the only Salesforce limit you can request an increase for. Process Limits, depending on how complex you have built your organization, can also be increased. As noted in the link above Process Limits start at 50 rules or processes per object. Granted this didn’t initially seem like a high number until you realize it is per object. So this in and of itself is a pretty high limit. But in an instance where you find yourself creeping your way towards the 50 limit for a particular object you can request a limit increase. According to my Executive Account manager Salesforce tries not to go higher than 300 per object here. As with any computer, IOS or even your cell phone the more applications and processes you have running at the same time the lower your performance will be. With that being said don’t let yourself feel that you are held to the initial limits Salesforce has set up, anything can be changed to suit your particular business need all you have to do is ask!

When I first started as an Administrator in Salesforce (and even now 7 years later) workflow rules continuously tripped me up and proved difficult. When Salesforce introduced the Lightning Process Builder in 2014 I did not give it much thought since it wasn’t going to solve any problems I had at the time they mentioned it. Of course once I stepped into my current position in January 2015 I started learning more about what Salesforce is really capable of at an accelerated rate than I had the previous 5 years. When Lightning Process Builder became available in our Sandbox as a Beta test I was skeptical about whether we should begin using it.

By the time Process Builder was available in Production we were impatient and eager to use it. Process Builder takes complicated single workflows and combines them and simplifies their flow. The whole layout is clean and reads just like a flow chart where you write out the process flow starting with the target object and defining the initial criteria. The Process Builder allows an Administrator to create a configuration that would have originally required a Developer and knowledge of Apex. Salesforce is now on a mission to encourage point and click automation over code configuration. They want their customers to be able get jump in and be able to work smart and efficiently without having to be bogged down with code writing and complicated customization.

By introducing Process Builder as the first part into the Lightning Platform they opened the way for Administrators to be able to better refine business procedure using fewer processes than multiple individual workflows that may have needed complicated Apex code written by a specialized Developer. Process Builder is so easy and clean I activated nearly 5 processes the same day the tool was released from Beta testing and launched live. Since then there have been 3 releases that have all included upgrades and improvements to an already simple tool.

When I attended Dreamforce this past year I was stunned to find so many Administrators, Developers and Customers who were hesitant to use it. I encouraged anyone I met that was not already using it to test it and demo it. Process builder is one simple tool that can streamline an entire Business. What is the harm in using an easy, user friendly point and click automated tool? So if you are asking whether or not you should use Salesforce Process Builder to automate business functionality and flow within your platform the answer is as simple as the tool itself. Of course you should use it!